. . .So you could be forgiven if everything you know about medication research you learned from the news. And yet, if you care about your health and about truth in advertising, a study published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association reminds us why relying on the print or online media alone isn’t a safe bet.
The authors of the study looked at how often news articles about medication research reported whether or not the research was funded by a pharmaceutical company. They found that 42% of all news articles failed to report that research had received company funding. They also surveyed editors to ask about editorial policy (both written and unwritten) regarding citation of funding sources. Of the 104 articles taken from publications where editors reported always citing funding sources, 45% failed to do so. Three percent of the editors surveyed said their paper had a written policy about naming company funding sources. Far more (62%) said there was an unwritten policy. According to the data neither is working out very well.
Gallery Carre
